Thursday, January 31, 2013

The Oddity: Fountain Pens!

A few weeks ago, Nadja (of La Domna) tagged me for an oddity post. Liz writes a series 'Things I Like A Lot' on her blog. I can't do a series because my life is not that exciting really. But this is my one off oddity post about my fountain pen love!

Writing with Mont Blanc 145 Chopin fountain pen

I love fountain pens. Love that borders obsession. My love for fountain pens started when I was in 3rd grade, thanks to my teacher, Ms Burnie Fife who had the most beautiful handwriting and taught us how cool and grown up it is to write with a fountain pen. Since then I have been a devout fountain pen user. My first fountain pen was Camlin which leaked like a real water fountain. Ink stains on fingers and clothes, filling it up with a filler, keeping a piece of chalk to suck the ink, lending and borrowing ink drops.... was so much fun! Then I moved on to better pens like Hero, Parker, Camel, Pilot, Waterman etc. I wrote with many fountains pens till I completed my university. I still do and thankfully my line of work involves a lot of writing.
I write with ball point pens, gel pens too but fountain pens have always been close to my heart. Nothing else gives the pleasure of writing as a fountain pen gives!

I also married a man who is as fond of fountain pens as I am. We keep buying pens as gifts for each other. We don't really collect fountain pens but we have some nice ones. These are the pens we are using right now.

We have an obsession with Mont Blanc, a super expensive obsession. Three Mont Blanc pens between us:

Mont Blanc Meisterstruk Mozart, a set of a fountain pen and a ball point pen

This is my favourite pen, Kingsley mini fountain pen. It is the least expensive of all my pens. This is a total attention grabber and the photo doesn't do it justice. My all time favourite pen is still a Hero pen. I need to buy one soon.

I do check fountain pen forums occasionally and love watching fountain pen videos on YouTube. But I have to admit I am not really into the technicalities of pens, unlike many other people out there who really know their stuff. My knowledge about pens is comparable to someone owning and enjoying a Serge Lutens but not knowing much about the notes or the perfumer. It smells good is all that matters for a perfume and for a pen, it writes well is all that matters.

21 comments:

Now that is odd! I don´t have the patience for writing pretty, so my handwriting is all over the place... I mostly use erasable ballpoints, especially in my pretty perfume notebooks, because those are holy and not to be fouled by any inkblots or misspellings... (I really should do a blog post about these notebooks someday! They are super geeky!)

Will do! I love notebooks, but I do have a tendency to buy them and then not know what to use them for... My newfound passion for perfume though gave me an excuse to invest in some really pretty notebooks! I love them!

And the erasable pens are awesome! I don´t know how I managed before!?

Omg, this is amazing! My boyfriend loves Cross pens, so I know the feeling of owning a good pen. It just feels great! I'm paranoid to use his Cross pen because I have a tendency to lose pens. I've never used a fountain pen. Are they more difficult to write with?

I know this is really weird, but I love watching ASMR videos on YouTube, and the sound of people writing on paper with pens is just so comforting!

Oh, I am paranoid about losing these pens too. I'll die of shock if I lose my Mont Blancs :DFountains pens are easy to write with because you need not apply as much pressure as you do with a ball point pen. It is gentler on the joints of the fingers that way and good for the handwriting too. My handwriting is wonky with a dot pen. The more you use,the more the nib smoothens and easier it gets to write with it.

I never knew what ASMR was till now! I need to check those videos out and relax!!

Ah crap, I messed up my first comment. Sorry about that. Anyway, I understand that you'd be worried if you lost one of your beautiful pens! That would be just awful :c

Fountain pens seriously sound amazing! I should probably invest in one someday because I do a lot of writing at one of my jobs. I also have to write fast because I hate to think the kids don't think I'm listening to them when I have to write down certain things. If I ever did invest in a fountain pen, I'd seriously have to secure it to my name badge or something, haha!

ASMR videos are really wonderful. They are getting a bit more of a following nowadays, which is cool. They really help with my stress, but I also like to watch them for fun. My favorite channel on YouTube for ASMR is GentleWhispering. Her name is Maria, and she's from Russia. She is so talented and her videos are so relaxing. I also like SoftlyGaloshes (I spelled that wrong in my first comment, which is why I deleted it). She doesn't have many videos, but I do like a lot of the ones she does have! :) Let me know if you want any more recommendations, I could email them to you or comment here. c:

Just looked at some ASMR videos! Holy molly, that is so weird.... Whispering, eating chips, chewing gum noises! I should really get into this to feel relaxed I guess. I will try for sure. Thanks so much for the recs :) x

If you are going to get your first fountain pen, you might want to go for cheaper but good ones with a fine to medium nib. Not worth spending hundreds of pounds on the a pen but there sure is a market for it, crazy people like me :D

I know, I was first kind of weirded out by ASMR videos! I was like, what is going on here? But now that I understand the concept more, it's easier to get into them. A lot of people have different things an sounds they like to hear. It's definitely not for everyone, though! So don't feel bad if you're not into it, of course!

It's funny, I told my best friend about ASMR, and she really got into it and started watching them every night. It was so cute!

Thanks for the advice, I definitely wouldn't want to spend a fortune on a fountain pen since I still am a noob. You are not crazy- pens are seriously awesome! A good pen is worth the money, especially since you use pens so much :)

My first own was a fountain pen and I still remember that cool grown up feeling of using a real 'ink pen'! But after a lot of spilled ink and other such disasters, I switched to ball point pens. I still use the basic Reynolds one :-P

Aww that feeling of holding an ink pen! Yes, those spills! My dad always filled ink for me and I was not allowed to be alone with the ink bottle lol I remember Reynolds, it was the best dot pen ever made :)

What a quirky but totally awesome love! I feel like using a fountain pen takes some skill. I remember when I was younger I got a quill pen and and an ink pot and loved it...and also made a mess. I haven't thought about it in forever but your post makes me think maybe I should invest in a fountain pen; I feel like it would make writing and signing cards much more special!

This is awesome! I wanted to love fountain pens but decided I wasn't fancy enough. ;) I went through a phase with black ink pens and didn't use anything else for a time. Now I just use whatever is at hand, lol. It must be so nice to have someone close who shares the same obsession. :)

Oh I like black ink pens too. Somehow everything you write looks neat and perfect in black ink :DYes, it is nice that husband and I have this obsession but it is not always good because we enable each other to buy pens!

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All opinions in this blog are my own. I am not influenced by and I am not affiliated with companies or corporations in any way. I do not get paid in cash or kind for my opinions. I do not accept products for review by companies or their public relations. I do not write sponsored posts. This is an Ad Free blog.

I am not an expert on perfumes nor am I a critic. I just write what I smell. None of these writings should be taken as medical opinion.